All the Old Knives

Chris Pine has two new movies, The Contractor and All the Old Knives, the latter in theaters and on Amazon Prime. Of the several American leading men in cinema under 45 (Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt), I like Pine the most. He’s the best actors of the Chrises, giving entertaining performances as Jamkes T. Kirk in multiple Star Trek efforts, Will Colson in Unstoppable (where his acting was more heartfelt than Denzel Washington’s as Frank Barnes), Toby Howard in Hell or High Water, and Steve Trevor, the charismatic hunk who wins Diana (Gal Gadot) in Wonder Woman, among others. Before these two new films, he hadn’t been on the silver screen since Wonder Woman 1984 in late 2020, and I confess I was hoping to greet them with positive reviews that announce his triumphant return. Unfortunately, The Contractor, which I wrote about only days ago, is a dim, predictable action thriller, lacking in action and thrills. All the Old Knives, a spy thriller, is better, although it too suffers from a shortage of excitement and crummy direction.

In 2020, Vick Wallinger (Laurence Fishburne) tasks CIA agent Henry Pelham (Chris Pine) with assessing the identity of the mole during the eight-year-old case of a hijacking at Vienna airport that ened with 100-plus people perishing. Henry travels to wealthy Carmel-by-the-Sea, California to interview Celia Harrison (Thandiwe Newton), who worked at the Vienna station when the tragedy occurred. There’s another complicating factor: Henry and Celia were lovers and after the hijacking, she left him without explaining why. As the two eat at a stylish restaurant, Henry questions her about the reopened case and why she ran off.

All the Old Knives, based on Olen Steinhauer’s novel of the same name, employs a flashback structure to show what went on during the hijacking, the discussions at headquarters, and the lovers’ relationship. All of which is to say, Steinhauer’s script maintains its fidelity his book. Director Janus Metz Pederson goes for mystery and tension more than excitement, though as I said earlier, it’s intended to be a thriller. Having said that, the shots of scared airplane passengers give a sense of the terror that dreadful day. Most of the action mildly simmers (and never gets hot), with Henry and Celia trying to outfox each other in the restaurant and, years prior, the CIA employees at the Vienna station conversing about what’s happening and what to do next.

One main slip-up is the way the hijacking is handled, and that goes for the novel too. Seizing control of an airplane, whether it’s flying or not, can be intensely dramatic in a movie. It could have been a rousing sequence. The suspense of negotiations and the fear it engenders in the passengers might have been riveting. And would the people on the aircraft survive? The film lets viewers know everyone on the plane dies, taking away tension that could have lasted for a whole hour. Steinhauer concentrates more on Henry’s inquiries about the mole. But this isn’t an Agatha Christie novel, where there are many suspects in the mix. Henry interviews Celia and weeks earlier he interrogated her mentor, Bill (Jonathan Pryce). Unless it turns out to be someone like the barely known waiter, it’s one of those three people. That’s neither hard to grasp nor fun to guess.

Henry doesn’t have much depth, but that’s more the fault of the writing than Chris Pine, who plausibly presents his character as one who can be aggressive and harsh questioning Bill and gently probing when speaking to his former girlfriend. He and co-star Thandiwe Newton also connect effortlessly with each other, so though the action often bores, the leads won’t allow the movie to be bad. Newton gives an absorbing portrayal as Celia. Her wet-eyed stares after Henry asks why she left him are, as Henry himself says, “convincing.” She has a strong moment as well when she is distraught on the plane. I should point out that while a lot of the film lacks spirit, the final 20 or so minutes grabbed me and aroused my curiosity in a way that nearly all the rest didn’t. I also like the unobtrusive score by Jon Ekstrand and Rebekka Karijord.

I can’t say I’m admirer of some of the shots, and I’m not sure who is more to blame, director Janus Metz Pederson or cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen. When Celia, in one scene, questions why Henry would Henry would pursue her, the camera films an extreme close-up of him then her. Focusing chiefly on Henry’s eyes is a miss because Henry’s peepers don’t reveal anything significant. And although I could see Celia’s right eye very clearly, a close-up that includes her entire face would have been a much better choice. At another point, Henry and Celia talk and kiss. The screen is sometimes dark, with occasional light in between them. Light shines on Celia as she stares lovingly at Henry. They give the smooching an encore and again the screen goes almost completely black. Their countenances largely remain in shadow. The lights are on. Why film the sequence in this odd and annoying manner?

The craziest pictorial part is when Henry sweetly talks to Celia and exits a house. The shadow of the door lands on Celia’s face, creating a black face mask and giving her look of an outlaw. It’s a phony dark light that looks idiotic and incredibly amateurish. Again, Pedersen’s evidentally believes eyes can express more than a character’s face. He’s wrong. Celia face could have revealed how emotional she is (without tears); instead, she seems to be a bandit about to commit some wrong, like maybe knocking over a liquor store. Maybe Pedersen is being an absurdist by giving Celia a filmic mask. Did she just steal Henry’s heart? Has she hijacked his devotion? Is Pedersen introducing a new character? Maybe she’s not Celia. Maybe she’s called the Frito Thandito, thief of love—and corn chips. Tasty corn chips. Or perhaps Celia is a woman before her time and knew COVID-19 was coming.

When hitman Treble (Michael Schaeffer) asks Henry more than an hour into the movie if they’re “still on” to have Celia killed, Henry says, “I don’t know.” That’s because his investigation has made almost no progress. Problem is, by that time, the same is also true for the movie.

The Contractor

I’m on Twitter. Recently, a friend asked me to check out someone on the site, saying he’s got “interesting content.” I searched the guy’s timeline and didn’t follow him. “Why not?” my buddy asked. I told him I had gone through 15 or 20 tweets and “couldn’t find a way in,” meaning I couldn’t find tweets I could connect to. I thought about that exchange while I watched The Contractor because I couldn’t get into this movie. It’s the work of the filmmakers to get audiences to become emotionally involved in the happenings on the screen. In this instance, they fail to accomplish that objective.

James Harper (Chris Pine) is a Special Forces Agent of multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. When a drug test reveals he has been using drugs to ease his pain, James is involuntarily discharged and stripped of his pension and benefits. With mounting bills, James must find new employment. He is introduced to the world of private contracting by his pal Mike (Ben Foster). James meets with Mike’s boss Rusty (Kiefer Sutherland) and not long after, he and Mike are in Berlin on a black ops mission to prevent middle eastern scientist Salim Mohamed Mohsin (Fares Fares) from creating a biochemical agent.

Normally, I don’t care much about character development in an action thriller. Here, though, so much time is spent building James’s character, I expected those efforts to gain currency later. They don’t. There are flashbacks of life with his father that imply James has abandonment struggles. The fact that Special Forces have dropped him should only intensify his feelings of betrayal. Instead, James isn’t emotionally devastated by the military’s rejection. His discharge comes off as an excuse to force him into a different line of work to support his family. And the father flashbacks don’t resonate as they should. For all the focus on character in the film’s first third, I never cared about the main character.

Screenwriter J.P. Davis and director Tarik Saleh don’t give James the bonds he should have. He clearly loves his wife Brianne (Gillian Jacobs) and son Jack (Sander Thomas), yet when he’s off in Berlin trying to avoid forces that want to kill him there’s too little sense that he needs to get home to his family. James might have imagined Jack growing up with the same feelings of desertion that he has felt because of his father. The family ties would have brought a welcome element to the story and made me feel for James. As it is, James might as well be a bachelor.

Saleh’s direction plods in the first 30 minutes, making the protagonist’s character development more lifeless than it should have been. Some of the Berlin action sequences are watchable in Bourne-like way, though there are times when James is open to being shot and the gunman unbelievably keep missing him. The climax contains action and tense moments, but it finishes too quickly to be altogether fulfilling. Sound is joltingly effective during the part where there’s an unexpected gunshot and a thump afterward.

Because James isn’t successfully written, Chris Pine can’t create a good character out of him. Pine, however, does well in individual scenes, as when he persuasively illustrates his rage at the situation he has been put in late in the movie. Ben Foster performs competently as Mike, although I wish he had been in more of the movie. The same can also be said about Kiefer Sutherland’s Rusty, who needed to be in more scenes to make an impact. This skimpy section on acting suggests what I wrote about a couple paragraphs ago: The Contractor is too much of a one-man show.

The Batman

Christopher Nolan’s Batman series was solemn, sinister, and frequently sunless. The reboot is more somber and that goes for Batman (played by Robert Pattinson), who broods so much he makes Christian Bale’s Batman seem joyful and light-hearted. Most scenes in the current movie are enshrouded in darkness, and the few that aren’t are set at dusk or dawn. There’s also a good amount of rain and some flooding. (That concludes my weather report.) So, if you’re looking for sun and fun, go to the beach.

Batman tries to crack a series of murders, though it’s less a question of who kills Gotham City mayor Don Mitchell Jr. (Rupert Penry-Jones) and later victims than why. Riddler (Paul Dano) is the perpetrator and leaves Batman riddles to solve before he strikes again. Batman visits the Iceberg Lounge, a nightclub run by the Penguin (Colin Farrell), a lieutenant of powerful gangster Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). There, he sees pretty waitress Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), whom he directs, shortly after, to return to the club to surreptitiously ask questions for his benefit. Batman ascertains Commissioner Pete Savage (Alex Ferns) is being paid by Falcone. Bruce Wayne discovers the Riddler has an intende dislike for the Wayne family and wants to kill him. The Riddler also knows damaging particulars about Bruce’s late father Thomas. When Bruce finds out about a connection between Thomas and Falcone, it threatens to alter Bruce’s high opinion of his dad.

Batman, who has been battling crime for two years, is less of a superhero here than a detective. Although Batman has done more to help the city than Bruce, the latter is given better treatment. When, for example, Batman assists the police on the case, Gotham City officer Martinez (Gil Perez-Abraham) calls him a “goddamn freak.” Martinez subsequently sees Bruce and gives him a happy greeting, like they’re friends. Similarly, the twin bouncers (Charlie and Max Carver) at the Iceberg Lounge refuse to allow Batman in and are far more accepting of Bruce. Bruce isn’t said to be philanthropic, so it’s not a matter of his being beloved. These instances indicate Batman has a lot of work to do to capture the respect of Gotham City people.

Although it’s nowhere near perfect, the screenplay by Matt Reeves and Peter Craig has a firm foundation. Batman is a compelling figure who’s still figuring out his role in Gotham City. Because he’s not fully accepted by the public, he doesn’t feel the warmth he would if he were Superman. One of the script’s better lines has Batman saying, “They think I am hiding in the shadows, but I am the shadows.” When he arrives on the scene, he isn’t viewed as a savior, and when something goes wrong, as at Mitchell’s funeral, he is blamed, even though his efforts are heroic. With the frosty reception he gets, it’s no wonder he spends much of his time away from people. Because of the information Bruce discovers about his father, the Caped Crusader could withdraw even more because of his disappointment. I like the decision of the scriptwriters to have Batman attempt to overcome his desire for revenge and be more hopeful. It also undercuts the argument some are making about The Batman being unremittingly dark. The dark tone is softened late in the movie.

Director Matt Reeves’ typically slow, steady direction predominantly succeeds for the first two hours. The tempo is very consistent with a detective searching for clues in a mystery. The Batman is more than a detective movie. It’s a neo-noir crime drama, and Reeves, as his work in Let Me In, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes revealed, proves once again he can deliver on the action front. There’s a scene where Batman is chased near a building top and has nowhere to go but forward and down. His escape from the police recalls Richard Kimble’s (Harrison Ford’s) in The Fugitive and is a movie highlight. For a time, as Batman glides, the camera is used subjectively so we in the audience can get some sense of the danger he experiences. Reeves does a very good job handling the rousing Batman-Penguin car chase scene, the movie’s best. It also yields an exciting image (which I won’t reveal because it’s a surprise if you haven’t seen the trailer). Another neat visual: a shot of a question mark in the froth of a cappuccino. The Batman is also enhanced by Greig Fraser’s rich, beautiful cinematography. I particularly love the deep sepia tones.

The movie’s final section, however, seems to me its weakest. (Spoilers) Reeves has said Se7en influenced this film, and that’s plain because the story about two detectives (in this case Batman and James Gordon [Jeffrey Wright] tracking a serial killer) calls to mind that David Fincher work. I think Reeves makes a mistake by trying to have a big finish after the villain is captured. Rather than having Riddler essentially give up (as John Doe [Kevin Spacey] does in Se7en), I wish Batman had to outsmart the villain or chase him down in a clever way, or both. As it is, nabbing Riddler is a dramatic zero. The explosive climax contains a lot of action and special effects, but it’s not as emotionally satisfying as a fine Batman-Riddler finale would have been. And that’s because Batman takes on too many nameless, faceless foes, who don’t matter nearly as much. Also, had Reeves jettisoned his grand finale, he might have cut 20 minutes out of the too-long 176-minute running time.

There’s something else I’d like to address. One problem in some superhero movies, including this one, is the lack of believability. I understand some moviegoers don’t mind if a superhero film gets crazily unconvincing because, they argue, why spoil an entertaining time by using your critical thinking skills? My response to that is there are superhero movies don’t forego credibility for action’s sake (e.g., Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Dark Knight, and Spider-Man 2, and others). With all genres, I accept the fictional world a movie’s director creates. Saying Spider-Man shouldn’t be able to shoot webs because people can’t do that in real life makes as much sense as saying there shouldn’t be musicals because real people typically don’t burst into song. The genre conventions should be accepted to judge movies fairly. Reeves takes special care to get many of the details just right, from Batman’s sturdy suit to Gotham City’s wonderfully atmospheric and gloomy vibe. Because it tries to be realistic, it should play by realistic rules.

The Batman, unfortunately, is implausible, marring the movie’s overall effectiveness. In the scene where Batman jumps off a building, his parachute opens, but it hits an overpass. From there, Batman strikes a bus, a car, and takes a brutal tumble for dozens of feet on a hard surface. He gets to his feet and walks away like he took a vicious kick to the leg. Reeves deserves credit for making the fall seem authentic, but if Batman had crashed that hard, he would have been in bed for days, maybe a week. Also, Penguin and his men fire at Batman, and the latter gets hit. Batman is motionless. The next time he’s seen, he’s in the Batmobile. Getting thwacked by gunfire shouldn’t take seconds to recover from. Late in The Batman, the Dark Knight is shot many times, including with a rifle at point-blank range. I’m not sure he would survive that kind of assault, and while it harms him, minutes later, he fights like he was never shot. (Is his body armor that good?) He’s also very near a bomb when it goes off and again, it does no lasting damage (when it obviously would) and doesn’t take much recovery time.

Robert Pattinson does a better-than-expected job in the title part, although a closer look at the various aspects of his portrayal suggests his success (like the movie’s) has its limitations. He’s got a sense of gravity about him, including his slow, sure movements, weighty looks, and the serious-sounding voice. Though other actors who have played Batman show that a fine body isn’t necessary (Adam West, Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck), Pattinson’s chiselled physique is a plus. As Bruce Wayne, though, he’s a fizzle. Whereas Christian Bale was a charming Bruce, Pattinson lacks the charisma needed for that part of the dual role. He’s given little assistance by the script that doesn’t give him enough chances he needs to illustrate an engaging personality in social settings. Pattinson’s Batman also has no chemistry with Catwoman. Again, if Pattinson could have dropped the grave way he views life for a while, the romance would have had more appeal. Zoe Kravitz, as Catwoman, exudes personality and spunk that’s like a 100-watt bulb in near-darkness. Paul Dano’s psychotic Riddler is persuasively off-kilter and scary, as he should be. Performing as the Penguin, Colin Firth is inundated with so much makeup, he’s unrecognizable. I’m happy to say he does a good job. John Turturro might have created an overbearing killer out of Carmine Falcone, but he makes the better choice to underplay his character’s malevolence. He’s excellent. Andy Serkis gives Alfred an endearing quality I liked. He isn’t given the screen time to make a vivid impression, though.

Michael Giacchino’s unsettling score seems the correct choice, keeping me on edge and curious about what would happen next. It’s understandably more romantic sometimes in scenes with Catwoman, though the music unfortunately turns gooey during the rescue. Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” is a pleasant, if snoozy, track, but in the film, it goes on too long, being played nearly in toto. Then a clip of the song is repeated. Something does get in this movie’s way, and it’s the last song on Nevermind.

There’s an assortment of gratifying elements in The Batman and I think more well than ill of it. Still, if there is a sequel, I don’t mind saying I hope the next one is better.